The Economist has a story on a supposed glut of bees in California. Their scenario for the fall and rise of commercial bee populations has as much to do with economics as ecology:

This year’s Californian bee glut, then, has been caused by a mixture of rising supply meeting falling demand. The price of almonds dropped by 30% between August and December last year, as people had less money in their pockets. That has caused growers to cut costs, and therefore hire fewer hives. There is also a drought in the region, and many farmers are unlikely to receive enough water to go ahead with the harvest. Meanwhile, the recent high prices for pollination contracts made it look worthwhile fattening bees up with supplements over the winter. That may help explain why there have been fewer colony collapses.

The rise and fall of the managed honeybee, then, owes as much to the economics of supply and demand as it does to the forces of nature. And if the nutrition and disease theory is correct, next year’s lower contract prices may see beekeepers cutting back on supplemental feeding, and a resurgence of CCD.

Although the article implies that CCD (colony collapse disorder) is treatable and expresses skepticism about the thesis that there is a larger pollination crisis, there is still plenty of material to give pause to anyone who cares about the environment. If other pollinators such as butterflies and bats are perishing for other reasons such as habitat depletion, this is still bad. And if the bees are being depleted by serving monocultures, this is just one more reason that monocultures are bad. I’ve also learned from this article that growers hire apiaries through middlemen called “pollination brokers,” which for some reason sounds mildly creepy, as if it comes from some sci-fi dystopia. But alas, it’s not sci-fi, it’s the industrial agriculture that surrounds us — which is creepy enough.